Changing (more than weight loss)

Feb 01, 2015

Yesterday was my 1 month surgiversary. I've lost 23lbs in one month...it's mind boggling! I've come to realize in the last 31 days though, that there have been other changes even more profound. When we start our WL journey's, most of us are required to have a psychological evaluation. I remember even before starting my journey and talking to people who had WL surgery or people who knew others who had it talking about the emotional changes that can come with surgery and the challenges of coping with them are a big part of why a psych evaluation is so important. My relationship with food before surgery was not as simple as I thought. Oh, I knew I had an emotional connection with food. I knew I had certain triggers that would lead me to overeat. I've always been aware of my voracious appetite. I was actually looking forward to breaking free of the hold my appetite had over me. What I never realized was how much the act of eating regular meals each day, not the binges or indulgences, not the over eating or snacking, just the regular meals, influenced me emotionally and mentally. As I've been adjusting to the changes in my diet with foods and portions post op, there's been many moments where I sit in a kind of confused state wondering what to do with myself. Moments where things I enjoyed seem less pleasurable because in my old routine, the events around my meals were more intertwined than I ever realized. Coming home from work and cooking dinner while watching a favorite TV show. Not so much eating the meal, but even just preparing it! Now, I find myself restless, I'm free of my over-controlling appetite, I don't even experience hunger and have to remind myself to eat, often I need to make myself eat at my meal times. I just never realized how much emotional pleasure and satisfaction I received in the simple act of eating a PB&J sandwich on a Saturday afternoon when lunch came between household chores. While I'm not sad about eating less or being free of the constant cravings, and i'm certainly not missing the feeling of guilt from poor food choices or my overeating habits. I've come to believe that my greatest challenge to date is coping with the realization that my entire daily routine revolved around food! Even days of regular meals. Eat breakfast, go to work, eat lunch, back to work, come home and make dinner, watch TV, do a few household chores, go to bed. On the weekends it might be...eat breakfast, shower, putz around the house, eat lunch before going out? or am I going somewhere to meet up with friends where we'll get a bite to eat there?...Going to a movie? eat light because i'll want a snack at the movie. Going fishing (MY FAVORITE PASSTIME!) Pack a lunch and snacks. Doing yard work? Throw something in the crockpot so I won't need to cook after I come in. Grocery shopping? Sit down, plan meals and make the list beforehand. ...All this has changed, and now I find that my daily routine seems less pleasurable and at times, i'm a little lost. TV makes me restless and I often go to bed before 8pm! Saturday chores and housework are much more tedious. Work is less difficult, but the day seems longer and yet when I get off, I find that being done for the day and rushing home isn't as satisfying either. I now understand when people talk about transfer addictions. My lucky break is that Fishing is STILL just as pleasurable for me! And thank God for that! I still pack a lunch and fluids but it's acceptable foods from my plan. I have to remind myself to eat while i'm out fishing but my Fishing addiction ALWAYS trumped my food one! Because I still get complete satisfaction from fishing, I guess it's become my transfer addiction, I've put off weekend housework to go fishing instead, I keep my Ice fishing gear in my car and even though I only have about 2 hours of sunlight in the afternoons, I've been going out straight from work. It helps kill time after work. It's not that I want to come home and eat. Or that I want to stuff my face on the weekends. It's that now that I DON'T have any desire to do these things, I don't know what to do with myself instead. Or that all the other things I did seem less pleasurable because even though I didn't know it, there was a emotional connection deeply rooted in my daily routine between meals and chores or meals and activities. I know my ADHD is a factor in all this. Routines are VERY important with my ADHD and so i'm familiar with feeling mentally and emotionally disorientated when my routine gets upset. I also know that it's only been one month. I've had 45 years to develop the habits and routines in my life, change has always been easier when it's slow or subtle. The changes that come post op are very rapid and abrupt! I'm thankful I recognize what's happening and understand WHY i'm having some emotional issues with this. I'm also blessed to have a strong support system in place but honestly, I realize that it's just going to take time and patience. I'm changing my routines and learning to adjust. I forgive myself if the house gets a little messy because the changes in that routine are still a work in progress. I've been to a couple of movies and even though I have NO desire to eat the food from the concession stand, somehow NOT having anything has made watching the movie itself less enjoyable but I know that this too is just an adjustment, a change that takes time to become a normal routine. And I did see these movies while still in my liquid phase post op, I know that eventually when i'm back on regular solids, I'll have food options that I can "smuggle in" if I feel like i'll want a snack during the movie, but my goal is to learn to just enjoy the movie without needing an emotional boost from food even if it is a healthy choice! A friend on here made a post about how having to chew food so thoroughly makes eating more of a chore than a pleasure. I have to agree with her! The emotional satisfaction from eating a meal is gone. Right now, I eat because I HAVE to, not because of hunger or appetite. I don't get any satisfaction from eating and THAT is the hardest change! The simple joy of food is gone. Even when it wasn't a fancy meal, a celebratory meal, a dinner at a restaurant with friends or an indulgence from a fast food joint, something as simple as a scrambled egg is just a means of protein and sustenance for my body, but I get no pleasure from eating it. After pondering this dilemma for a couple of weeks I've realized that my relationship with food was an ADDICTION! Food fed me physically, mentally and emotionally and it was much more complex than I ever realized! Unlike drugs, alcohol or smoking, we can't give up food completely. This makes it much harder to overcome the addiction. It's a process and it takes time. Time to relearn how to eat because the body needs nutrition and not because it fills an emotional hole. Time to learn how to eat balances meals for the sake of health instead of eating meals full of comfort foods that spike the blood sugar and even though it gives an emotional rush with the sugar high, it also leads to cravings and in turn, more eating. Time to learn how to eat proper portions and then stop so your body leans how to tell you it's full and also, when it's actually hungry. And time to relearn how to enjoy food without being emotionally addicted to the act of eating itself. I know in time, my body will adjust to the changes from surgery, my tolerance for foods and portions will grow. My appetite and hunger will come back. So I also realize that I need to take this time now to focus on making sure I address my past addiction with food. I need to stay committed to my plan, be vigilant in my choices and learn how to cope with the emotional and mental withdrawals from my food addiction by finding other healthy ways to fill those voids or satisfy those needs. I need to relearn how to enjoy a daily routine without having it centered around food. Every activity, chore, event, task, outing, or habit that I now realize was pleasurably enhanced by food needs to be weened and reprogrammed in my mind so I can learn to enjoy them of complete them for their own purposes or if necessary, give them up. I never realized just how big of a hold food had over my emotions. Every day, I break that hold a bit more. I can say since surgery, I've lost 23 lbs of weight, but I've lost so much more in emotional baggage. Breaking the bond between food and my emotions. It's a struggle and I know the battle isn't over. Much like an alcoholic, I'll never be cured of this addiction. It'll be a lifelong condition. But I can learn how to control it instead of it controlling me. Finally understanding this has lifted a weight from my shoulders heavier than any amount of excess body fat i'll ever lose! So each day as I remind myself to eat, and sometime make myself eat, I remember a time when I had to remind myself to stop eating. When I have moments where I feel emotionally empty, confused or unmotivated, I forgive myself for unfinished tasks, give myself time to work through the confusion, and seek other ways to feel emotionally content so that when my appetite and hunger DO return, it's no longer my habit or part of my routine to rely on food to fulfill anything BUT hunger and nutritional sustenance and to enjoy food solely for THAT purpose alone. Every day I make a little more progress and i'm so incredibly amazed at how this surgery has not only helped me recognize my addiction, but given me the ability to take control of it! The reason for my obesity was not as simple as just eating too much so expecting the surgery alone to cure my obesity would be ridiculous! But it did grant me time to identify all the reasons. It's given me a chance to sort through them, face them and learn to deal with them. People here often say WLS is just a tool for weight loss and it's up to us to learn to use it right and make it work for us. I'd say it's like a Swiss Army Knife...it's more than just one tool! If you explore all it has to offer, you'll find it does much more than just reduce the size of you stomach. It changes your body's chemistry, it changes how your body communicates with your brain, and to use it efficiently, you need to use all the attachments of the tool. 

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